


we should just kiss like

by Claudia_bm



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Felix did not die I don't know what you mean, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Mild Blood, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 21:04:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6255727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claudia_bm/pseuds/Claudia_bm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, he woke up and saw the world anew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Tiny mention of blood and maggots for comedy purpose in both chapters  
> Beta'ed by me reading this several times so I apologise for any mistake.

It was warm and bright when he opened his eyes.

Only to shut them again right away, overwhelmed by the sudden burst of light and colour. He flailed, hit something with his arm and knocked it over. The loud clang that followed had him cover his ears in panic. It hurt. The sound was like a sharp blade to his ears. He whimpered and curled in on himself out of instinct, trying to get away from the pain. Out of desperation, he turned his head to bury his face into the crook of his arm. It didn’t work. The light found him there still. Faintly, in the chaotic world he was thrust into, he could still hear someone muttering something short and harsh under their breath, the words barely discernible. Then all of a sudden, the near painful luminescence pressing against his close eyelids went away. His body uncoiled a little but still wounded tight, tense with apprehension. He laid there breathing heavily and feeling utterly confused. He didn’t know what was going on, where he was or why everything hurt so much. His skin prickled even though the room was not cold, and sweat broke out even though it wasn’t hot either.

Something touched his cheek, he startled and shied away. It didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t handle the sensation just yet. Someone was close, close enough that he could hear them shushing him even with his hands still clutching at his ears. The sound calmed him somewhat. The next time that someone reached out to touch the same spot on his cheek he jumped a little bit but didn’t move away. The person started stroking the side of his face. They started out with feathery, barely-there strokes, fingers skimming over the skin so as not to frighten him again. The pressure increased little by little. The person grew bolder, spurred on by the fact that he wasn’t pulling back. He felt… good, almost as if his frayed nerves were soothed by every press against his cheek. The person tugged at his arm, gently, and he willingly let them move it away from his face. Fingers hooked under his chin and tilted his face up. That someone started saying something. He found that he liked their voice. It was gentle yet firm, and he clung onto it. The thumb on his chin idly started to glide back and forth. “Cullen.” The person kept repeating that word, even though he didn’t know what it meant. “Cullen.”

Curious, he opened his eyes at last. Peaked one open first. Then when no pain came, the other one as well. There was a man sitting in front of him, face half shielded in darkness. He couldn’t make out any solid shape. Everything was blurry, all smudged edges and blend-together details. He blinked once, twice, and felt tears wet his eyes before they started focusing properly. There was a window behind the man, a huge window, big enough to show off a fraction of a dark sky and a bright full moon hanging high. When he had stopped being mesmerised by the glowing orb, his eyes moved away from it to once again find the other man’s face. He was startled to find the face in the dark familiar, and the smile that stretched those lovely lips was familiar. He must know those grey eyes, those wrinkles on that forehead and that joyous expression that lit up the man’s face. Who are you, he wanted to ask, but no sound came forth. He licked his lips, opened his mouth only to close them again in frustration. It felt like something was blocking his throat, not letting the words come out.

“It’s alright. It’s alright.” The man said, pressing a cool flask to his lips. “Here.” Water. He greedily drank from it, vaguely recognising the soft, pitiful noises he was hearing to be coming from him. Despite the distraction, his eyes never left the man who was gently brushing sweat matted hair away from his forehead. He could see the adoration and tenderness the man was directing at him, and he, although didn’t fully understand those emotions yet, shuddered under their heat. A word appeared in his head, begging to be said. It made his head swim and his tongue itch. He pushed the flask away gently but firmly. The man didn’t resist the movement. He reached up to touch the man’s face, mimicking his earlier action. Yes. He thought when the man didn’t move away. He was lost, he was scared. The world opened before him like a book with too many blank pages. But this, this he knew. This he was sure of more than he had been sure of anything else since he first opened his eyes.  When his lips parted this time, the word came easily. “Dorian.”

Tears sprang to the man’s eyes and for a moment he thought he had stepped over a line. But Dorian held onto his hand, short fingernails dug crescents into his flesh and whispered shakily. “Yes.”

Later, he learnt that Cullen was his name.

Cullen... something something. He wasn’t good with words yet. He found there were a few he could competently say, one of which being ‘Dorian’. They were in a big house and Cullen was standing in one of its guest rooms. He had had to lean on Dorian all the way here. His legs wasn’t working properly, and he kept having to remind himself to put one in front of the other. The muscles were all tense and stiff. Bones and tendons grinded together as he moved.

Cullen looked up at himself in the mirror. Cloudy brown eyes stared back at him. His irises were veiled by milky white sheets, making them look blank and unemotional. He had to look away quickly, bothered by the soulless, empty gaze reflecting back at him from the mirror. When he dared glance back, he tried to focus somewhere else. Cullen touched the scar that ran up from his mouth. His fingers followed the path it made. It started as a deep indent of never properly healed flesh from near one corner of his upper lip, and got shallower and shallower before fading into nothingness just under his cheekbone. There was another small scar on the other side of his face, just an inch away from the corner of his eye. Another on his forehead, only visible if he got the hair out of the way. Another on the side of his jaw.

A big and jagged one lied across his throat, stretching almost from one ear to the other. The scar was a greyish colour, standing out against the pink tinted flesh around it. Rather than dented in like the others, it extended outward to create a bump. The texture was strange on his finger. Cullen idly pressed at it and wondered why he had so many of these, while Dorian didn’t seem to have any.

Earlier, the man had dressed him in a loose and comfortable tunic. Literally. Dressed. Him. Dorian had had to come over and pull the tunic over Cullen’s head after watching Cullen struggle to figure out which hole to put what part of his body through. The tunic was made out of silk, light and soft, and for some unknown reason, felt rather strange against Cullen’s skin. Everything felt like that. It seemed that there were more that he should have known. Like how to put a tunic on, or why he found the material weird. The knowledge was there in his head, but they jumped and dodged and scurried out of reach when he tried to grab for them. Cullen ran his hand through his hair and sighed. The long curly locks kept getting into his eyes.

Dorian walked in then, carrying a tray. He smiled upon seeing what Cullen was doing, but his face was carefully neutral. “Hungry?” He asked. Dorian had been using simple words when talking to Cullen, which the other man appreciated. Cullen nodded, then remembered that he had promised himself to try to talk more, said: “Yez, Dorian.”

Dorian chuckled, not in a mean way, but Cullen still felt his face heat up. It did that a lot around Dorian and Cullen had just charted it up as something Dorian could do, like how the man could conjure fire from thin air. At the moment, Cullen wasn’t able of coming up with a more plausible explanation yet, so to him, that made as much sense as anything else.

The food tasted funny on his tongue, but not in an unpleasant way. Cullen was full after two spoons. After the meal, Dorian left to put the tray away. He came back with a fairly thick book. Dorian regarded Cullen for a while. “Tired?”

“No. Not really.” Cullen said

Dorian handed him the book: “Here, could you read this?”

The book was heavy in Cullen’s hands. He was going to retort: “Hey I wasn’t illiterate you know, despite what you Tevinter might think of us Southern.” But the words slipped away one by one as quick as they were formed, and Cullen was left wide-eyed and irritated and void of anything to say. Dorian waited patiently as Cullen tried to collect his thought, but found his head remaining stubbornly empty. “Maker’s breath.” He muttered, staring dagger into the cover of the book like it had offended him, and completely missed the emotion flickered on Dorian’s face upon hearing those words.

Cullen opened the book. Some of the words he could understand, but some he couldn’t. He furrowed his brows and turned some pages. The letters were big and simple, easy to read. Cullen looked up at Dorian and, found approval in the man’s eyes, slowly read them out loud. Dorian moved over sat down next to him on the couch, a little bit further away so they weren’t quite touching. He seemed contented to sit there and help Cullen with the reading, correct him when he was wrong and praise him when he got something right. His presence was reassuring, comforting, so much that Cullen started getting sleepy. His eyelids got heavy and the world started to blur together again.

“Cullen?” Dorian poked him lightly, grey eyes worried. Cullen slurred, suppressing a yawn: “M’tired, can we go to bed now?” It was the longest chain of words he had been able to string together so far. Dorian looked torn between wanting to cry and to laugh, but Cullen was too tired to notice. The man swallowed several times before he said, sounding a little choked up: “Yeah, let’s go to bed.”

Dorian helped him get to the bed again this time, even though it didn’t seem necessary. The bed was close. He sat Cullen down on the comfy mattress and took off his shoes and jacket. Cullen sank into the pillow once Dorian was done and fell asleep almost right away, too exhausted by the events of the day. He paid no extra attention whatsoever to the moon rising high on the first night of his life.

In those first few nights and days after that, the house was Cullen’s entire world. Dorian simply had no desire to leave, so neither did Cullen. The ‘world’ was new and exciting. The lack of memory meant every experience was a new experience, and Cullen was eager to know them all.

He wandered around the place when he was bored, or felt like he had been sitting in one place for too long. The house fascinated him with its seemingly eternal darkness. The shadow appeared to have bled out from the wall and never left, even with the curtains opened and the sun shining in. Cullen imagined seeing the shadow lurking in the corner, waiting for its chance to re-emerge once the light was gone. It hid behind the portraits hung on the wall and coiled around every expensive pieces of furniture. Each had intricate dragon carvings of some design on it.

Dragon was such a big present in the estate. There were dragon statues in every corner of the house and dragon painting on the walls. Dragons sat next to keyholes, rested against the legs of tables and chairs and curled around all kinds of handles. The extent to which the designer of the house had gone to bring dragons into such little details threw Cullen off a loop, but Dorian barely seemed to notice. 

Dorian spent the majority of his waking time either in his study or the library, leaving only to go to the kitchen to prepare for meals. Cullen once offered to help, but when Dorian handed him a knife he couldn’t for the love of his life recall how to use it. Dorian just smiled and told him to go sit down and wait. “It would come eventually.” Dorian always said, and Cullen always thought he understood what that meant.

After each meal, Dorian would clean up then go back to his study, with Cullen on his heels. Cullen had taken to following Dorian around like a puppy, rather unwilling to be parted from Dorian for too long, encouraged by the fact that Dorian didn’t mind having him around. He was happy with just sitting next to Dorian with a book in hands. Cullen had found that he loved reading. There were thousands of books in the library, but not all of them readable. Some were written in languages Cullen didn’t understand. Some were about subjects that were completely foreign to him. This discovery pleased Cullen greatly, though the cause for it was another mystery. He sat in the library or the comfy chair in Dorian’s study to read. Sometimes he wrote down things on a separate parchment, noting ‘this was wrong’, or ‘this needs more research’, or ‘this is interesting’ next to them. Dorian seemed pleased when Cullen started doing that, even if he didn’t voice his satisfaction out loud. The man was easy to read when he was pleased about something.

In return, Dorian was also damn stubborn to not let Cullen out of his sight. He was fine with Cullen leaving every now and then to go explore if he got bored, but he would often stop his work to go look for Cullen if he thought the other man had been gone for too long. More often than not it was because Cullen found some interesting thing in a random room, became too transfixed and lost track of time. He was like a little kid, easily excited by the strange artefacts around the house.

There was this one time Cullen purposefully hid from Dorian. His intention was childish and playful. He only wanted to play a prank on the other man. The house had plenty of spots to hide, in dark corners and behind gigantic statues. But when Cullen saw Dorian turning the corner to go look for him, the man’s expression put an end to the prank before it even began. His face was stricken with worry, despite it had only been mere minutes since he began his search. His mouth was set in a tight line and he let out an audible sigh when he passed by Cullen’s hiding place. Cullen peered out, feeling guilty yet intrigued. He had never seen emotion written so plainly on the other man’s face. Cullen immediately crawled out of his hiding place to chase after Dorian, who was so absorbed he didn’t even register Cullen’s presence until the blond called out softly. Dorian whirled back. There was this split second when Cullen could see relief flooded through Dorian upon seeing him, before the other man schooled his face back to neutral. It was jarringly heart-warming and, again, so strange.

For a brief moment Cullen thought his head would explode from all the mystery. Things he just couldn’t seem to make sense of. Things he felt like he should but couldn’t remember. And things that were slowly coming back to him but didn’t give him any answers, some of them left even more questions.

But then Dorian came to him and tugged at his hand. “Let’s go have lunch.” He said, simply, as if those words could solve everything. They didn’t, but Cullen’s thoughts quieted again for now. Dorian had that effect on him.

Dorian was Cullen’s favourite person in the whole world. Dorian was also the only person in Cullen’s whole world. To Cullen, the world was shrouded in mystery, and Dorian was at the centre of it all. Dorian was like a complicated puzzle. Cullen needed to find all the pieces to put together, and to figure out how to do it. Sometimes he got the impression that he had already finished the puzzle once, but the pieces got scattered all around again.

Sometimes, Dorian did something that triggered a memory. Cullen caught him when he tripped, and saw fire and heat exploding around them. Cold wind bit his nape and snow crunched beneath his boots. He could vaguely hear shouting, sound of swords being shed and people running. But it came to him in broken pieces, vague and unclear.

Cullen had figured out on his own that he had some kind of memory loss. Albeit a little slowly, it was surely coming back to him. His language skill got better every morning he woke up. He understood a lot more than he used to be able to. Names started to appear, faceless for now. But they belonged to the people he knew, no doubt. He was just thankful at least he had Dorian here with him. It would have been scary being alone without even remembering who he was.

Cullen changed physically, too. His eyes changed. They started out a white washed brown, but then the colour got darker. The thin white veils in front of his irises slowly disintegrated until the milky tone was all but gone. He pointed it out to Dorian, who crooned softly in surprise and wonderment. Dorian had offered a lot of reassurance, but no explanation whatsoever. Back then, Cullen was still too simple-minded to ask many questions. He just took it as it was: his eyes changed colour. It didn’t affect his eyesight, and so it took no time to disappear from his mind. There were many more exciting things to be occupied with.

One afternoon, Cullen was reading in the library when Dorian walked out from his study and saw him sitting on the ground by a pile of books almost as big as he was, brows knit together and nose scrunched up in concentration. Totally absorbed. It wasn’t until Dorian dropped down to his knees in front of him that Cullen lowered the book. He smiled, a little sheepishly. “Forgive me.” He said. “I got a little caught up.”

Something in his expression must have amused Dorian because the man chuckled. His words were light and teasing when he said: “Did I scare you then Commander? My bad.”

That funny nickname. Cullen still didn’t know what to make of it. He also wasn’t sure whether he should ask. He stuck his tongue out at Dorian and the man gave a sharp laugh in surprise. Dorian looked nice when he laughed, relaxed and carefree, as if the weight he carried upon his shoulders went away. He looked away when he laughed, but when he looked back at Cullen the fondness still lingered on the corner of his lips. Cullen couldn’t help but smile as well.

Dorian chuckled again and shook his head. “You’ve never failed to amuse me, Commander. Now, what was I going to do again? Ah.” He tapped a finger at his own neck. “May I have a look at the scar?”

At Cullen’s affirmative nod, Dorian hooked his finger under Cullen’s chin and gently lifted it up. Cullen’s whole body tingled at the touch. Then Dorian reached to touch the scar with his other hand and the tingling sensation got worse. Cullen shifted, couldn’t decide if he was feeling uncomfortable about the new sensation or not. Dorian’s breath fluttered like butterfly’s wings on his throat.

“Can you feel it when I touch the scar?” Dorian asked, pressing gently against it. Cullen swallowed and the muscle jumped under Dorian’s fingertip.

“Yeah.” He said.

“Good.” Dorian muttered. He stroked the skin, feeling the smoothness with his finger. “Any itchiness or pain? Or even numbness? Any strange sensation?”

Oh well now that you’d mentioned it. “No. It felt like the other scars.”

“Really no? You sure Commander?”

That funny nickname again. “Really no, Dorian.” Cullen huffed.

Dorian hummed in acknowledgement and withdrew his finger. It left a ghostly warm feeling in its departure. Cullen looked down and saw the wistfully, almost sad gaze Dorian was directing at the scar. Cullen shifted again, unused to be on the receiving end of such scrutiny. The other man sighed, shook his head. He stood up and made to walk away. Cullen was going to reach for his book when Dorian stopped. He turned around and tilted his head at Cullen.

“Do you want to go outside?”

Cullen, surprised, didn’t know what else to do but nod.

Dorian led him downstairs to the main entrance. Cullen passed by it often when he went exploring. The door was huge, painted dark and made of a really tough kind of wood. Cullen had spent hours just tracing the dragon designs on the door, and now he wondered why he had never had a particular desire to find out what was behind it. Dorian gave it a push and it opened. It wasn’t locked. None of the door in the house was, except for one. It was in the library, hidden behind the tall bookcases. Come to think of it, Cullen thought he might have went through that door before.

“Are you coming, Commander?”

Dorian called out to Cullen. The man had already stepped out into the light. Cullen hurried to follow, feeling a little awkward with his limbs all of a sudden, like he didn’t know what to do with them.

The colour was a surprise. Cullen hadn’t expected it to be so green. The house was on top of a hill covered in green grass, which was replaced gradually by a few bushes at a far distance before a forest took over. Cullen could make out a few farms near the edge of the forest, perhaps even a few animals. They were really far away. A breeze came by and caressed his face, a feeling Cullen didn’t know he had missed until then. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly, just taking in the familiar musky smell of earth and plants. The sun was warm and gentle on his skin. A sense of contentment rose within Cullen. When he opened his eyes he was smiling unbidden. Tiny white and pink flowers were blooming between the green grasses. His brain helpfully supplied: spring.

Cullen was so caught up with the new yet familiar sights and feelings that he didn’t notice Dorian watching him from behind. But even if he had, it would have just brought him more questions, for Dorian’s expression wasn’t one of joy, or sadness, but of contemplation, combining with something Cullen had not yet the capability to identify. Cullen was oblivious to it. He continued to marvel at the tiny red ladybug that was walking around on his finger. Everything was so bright and vivid. He had this funny urge to roll around in the grasses, but refrained. He didn’t imagine Dorian would be too pleased about dirt on his clothes.

Two hours later, Cullen had almost exhausted himself running around poking at every single little thing he saw. He couldn’t run too far away from the house, so he ran around it instead, chasing the iridescent butterflies and the frogs that came out from the pond nearby. He was breathing heavily and sweating buckets, but none of that could affect his good mood. Cullen sat down on the ground, laughing to himself. The grasses were prickly but he didn’t mind. He pulled up grasses and flowers, piled them into a neat little mount, and started braiding a crown for Dorian. The man had given up chasing after him an hour and a half earlier, choosing to sit under the shade of the big tree in front of the house instead. Cullen ran back to him every now and then, knowing he would be worried otherwise. The last time Cullen came around, however, Dorian had fallen asleep.

The flowers kept slipping out of Cullen’s grasp. He wasn’t clumsy, but it made him feel like so. He knew how to do this. It just hadn’t fully come back to him yet. He had gotten the frame done at least. Cullen wondered if Dorian would complain about the dirt and bugs that would get into his hair if he asked the man to wear the crown and giggled. He reached for his pile and stopped short when he saw a little bird standing on it. The bird tilted its head at him, looking curious and so much like Cullen himself that he couldn’t hold back a chuckle. Startled, the little thing spread its wings and took to the air... wobblingly. It must be quite young. The bird flew close to the ground, and slow enough that Cullen abandoned his work and chased after it. The little thing picked up its speed, chirping. It flew up a tree and disappeared. Cullen squinted his eyes at the branches, spotting a strange object among the leaves that might be the nest, and decided to climb up. It was easy. The tree was big and its branches sturdy. Cullen got halfway up in almost no time. He found a branch big enough to sit down, and swung on it, giggling. He had all but forgotten about the nest, distracted by the new view of the house.

The house seemed even more mysterious when he looked at it from this height. Its purplish black wall stood out against the bright green background. Cullen hadn’t realised the house didn’t have any balcony until then. He had never been to a place where houses didn’t have balconies. Cullen scanned the place, recognising his room by the plain white curtains, differed from the lacy type used around the house. Dorian’s was to the left, next to the library and his office. The windows in the library were almost always open. Cullen could see his pile of books, still sitting where he left it, and Dorian’s open parchment on the desk.

A rustling sound between the leaves above made Cullen look up. A bird flew out, bigger than the one Cullen had seen earlier but the same colour. It glided almost effortlessly through the air toward the house. For a moment Cullen had wanted to jump after it, but again, he stayed put. His eyes followed the path its little yellow body made until it disappeared behind the tower.

Wait what.

Cullen stared in disbelief at the tower. It rose up at the far east of the house and, from the look of it, connected to the second floor. How he had never come across that place before during all of his exploration he would never know. The tower was built hastily in stone and wasn’t painted like the rest of the house. It would look like an oversize chimney if not for the obvious roof and window. Cullen found himself getting excited. A new place to explore!

He quickly climbed down the tree. He must tell Dorian about this new discovery, maybe even convince the man to go with him. Cullen ran, picking up his half-done crown on the way and putting it on his head. Maybe he could use it to his advantage, sweetening the deal with Dorian. Cullen smiled. The little mischievous thought sent a pulse of adrenaline rushing through him, making him giddy. It was a foreign feeling. Three hours had barely passed but Cullen had already experienced enough new sensations to last him a week.

Dorian wasn’t there.

In fact, he was nowhere in sight. On a branch just above where he was sitting earlier sat a raven with red eyes. It looked at Cullen coldly before turning away. Cullen figured he wasn’t worthy of its attention. He paid it no mind. Dorian must have gone back inside the house. There wasn’t anywhere else to go. Didn’t even bother looking back at the strange bird, Cullen took the crown off and hid it behind his back before walking in.

It was like entering another world once the door was closed. Neither Cullen nor Dorian had remembered to open the curtains, so darkness smothered the place as soon as the sun was shut behind Cullen. He felt slightly uneased at the sudden change. But the closed space and the unique smell of the house made him feel safe. A heavy weight had been lifted off his chest, as if he had been unknowingly under some kind of pressure from being outside. Despite the beauty and the excitement, it was still a strange world.

Dorian, as it turned out, was in his study reading from a small piece of paper. Whatever the content was, it didn’t seem like good news. His brows were drawn close together and his lips were pressed into a tight line. Cullen’s good mood disappeared.

Dorian looked up to see Cullen standing at the door. He didn’t smile. His face was grim and serious. Somehow, Cullen knew this look. He knew this was what Dorian looked like when he was about to do something he really didn’t want to do. Dorian sighed. His hand, the one not holding the paper, twitched at his side, and Cullen also knew that was Dorian resisting the urge to run it through his hair. Said hand lifted and Dorian motioned for him to come closer. Cullen slowly walked in. He positioned his body so that Dorian couldn’t see the crown. It wasn’t a conscious action. Cullen didn’t even remembered what he was trying to hide.

Dorian pushed him down on one of the soft chair. Cullen barely managed to keep the crown from being crushed. Dorian’s eyes bored into him. He didn’t look sad, not exactly. There was, however, a faint trace of regret that Cullen could read from his expression. Dorian sighed again. He put his hand on Cullen’s shoulder.

“Cullen.” He said. “Cullen. I have to leave tomorrow morning.”

Oh... Cullen wasn’t sure how he felt about this. “When will you be back?”

Cullen could tell Dorian wasn’t expecting this question. He looked slightly taken aback, but then his gaze softened and his face brightened up a little. “The day after tomorrow.” He said. “At midday or maybe in the afternoon. Definitely before the day ends.”

Dorian stroked his hair and Cullen relaxed against the cushion. He hadn’t realise his whole body had been tensing up at the news. Dorian, leaving, which meant Cullen would have to spend the whole day by himself. Cullen wouldn’t lie, the idea, although interesting, also scared him quite a bit.

“Don’t worry.” Dorian murmured. “You can take care of yourself now. I’ll prepare the meals before I go. You can go outside if you’re bored, just don’t go too far.”

But I don’t want you to go, Cullen thought but didn’t say out loud. He didn’t like how whiny that sounded. He didn’t want to be an inconvenient to Dorian. Cullen fidgeted. He wondered if he already was, seeing how troubling Dorian was. He wanted to reassure Dorian, but that was easier said than done when one couldn’t even hold a knife properly. He tried to smile and hoped it didn’t come out as a wince. “I’m not worried. You go. I’ll wait here.”

Dorian laughed. “You’re such a good boy.” He teased. The twinkle in his eyes prompted Cullen to smile again, a little less forced this time. “It’s decided then.” Dorian withdrew his hand. “You can run along now. I’ll go make lunch.”

But Cullen stayed where he was. His heart was beating like crazy in his chest from anxiety. And Dorian hadn’t even left the house! Cullen took a deep breath, repeating to himself that he shouldn’t be fretting. He had nothing to fret about! But the words didn’t help. He jumped up, paced around the room. Dorian would be back. He said he would. He had never told me anything but the truth.

Cullen calmed down a little at the thought that Dorian would never lie to him. He unclenched his hand and wasn’t that surprised to see grasses, twisted and broken, fluttering down to the soft carpet.

When Cullen woke up the next morning, Dorian was already gone.

True to his words, Dorian had already made enough food to last for at least three days, all covered and put away nicely. Cullen stared at the plate for a while. He ended up putting it back, feeling uncharacteristically not hungry. Cullen was at a loss of what to. He thought he should go back to the library and finish the book he had been reading, except he didn’t feel like doing it. He wandered aimlessly around the house. Up until then, it had never registered to Cullen how big and quiet the place was. Now that Dorian wasn’t around, the silence was deafening in his ears. The shadow seemed closer, more real. Cullen kept expecting for it to jump out at him. The place had so little of Dorian in it, despite it being his. Beside the books in his study and maybe the food in the kitchen, it was just like any other houses, like Dorian was never here at all.

Cullen stopped in front of the locked door.

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t remember going upstairs. Cullen had never paid the door much attention. A locked door was hardly interesting when there were so many open doors that held amazement behind. Now that he had explored every corner of the house, it suddenly became interesting. It must lead to the tower. He tilted his head. The door didn’t look much different than the others presented in the estate. Wooden, with a brass door knob that had a dragon curling around it. He wondered what was so special that Dorian had to keep it locked.

Maybe there’s an actual dragon behind, Cullen thought. He wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. It was only the quietness of the place that proved there was no dragon around. Cullen turned the doorknob even though he knew he couldn’t.

Dorian wouldn’t be happy if he knew about this. Cullen stepped back. He didn’t want to disappoint the man. Dorian had never been vocally displeased about anything Cullen did, and Cullen really didn’t want that to change. He should do something else to preoccupy his mind. Maybe cleaning. They hadn’t cleaned the house for at least three days. Cullen should make himself useful, just in case Dorian came back.

He happily trotted away to get a broom, once again too distracted to re-examine the thought that just crossed his mind.

That night, Cullen woke up screaming.

He had been tossing and turning before he even became conscious. The cover had been kicked off and the sheet was rumpled. Cullen sat up and leaned against the nightstand. He was breathing heavily, almost gasping with every breath. The darkness of the room blanketing him was a relief. The dream had been very bright. Its intensive light was what had hurt him the most. Cullen pulled the cover up and wrapped it around himself in hope to stop the shivering. He wished he had not remembered anything. The details were hazier now that he had awaken, but the red still stood out among them all. And the screaming… He took in a sharp breath. It was like he was still hearing it. The gurgling noise of people choking on blood, begging for death.

Cullen belatedly realised he was amongst those people. He barely reached the chamber pot in the corner of the room in time to be sick.

The second time he dreamt, it was of pain. A pain unknown any other. There was a thousand pinpricks under his skin, under his fingernails and in his head. He knew there was something that could ease the pain, but he couldn’t get his hand on it. A blue light. But light could not be touched. He was on the ground, sobbing, babbling. There were onlookers. Their accents were harsh to his ears and their tone was unkind. He didn’t care. He just wanted the blue light. He dug his fingers into the dirt and felt the warm, sticky blood seeped out under his nails.

Cullen was still under the cover, curled in on himself, when Dorian entered the room. He felt weak, shaken. Cullen had hoped that the dreams were just illusions that his brain created when he was asleep, but he knew better.

“Cullen?” Dorian called.

He’s back, Cullen thought and peaked out from under the cover.

Dorian looked worried, again. Cullen did not want to worry Dorian. The satisfaction died suddenly and Cullen felt a surge of anger rising up inside him. Obviously he failed at that. _Again_. But why did Dorian have to worry about every little thing? Cullen was not a child.

He might as well be with how he was acting. Cullen swallowed. He tried to push down the fiery emotion that was shimmering in his chest. Cullen couldn’t recall ever feeling this way before. The feeling was unpleasant, but he knew a sign of recovery when it happened. Dorian must have seen the conflict written on his face, because he asked gently: “Did something happen when I was gone?”

Dorian liked to tease Cullen with his words. He would not have asked so serious a question in normal circumstances. Cullen sighed. “I had some bad dreams last night.”

Dorian’s face darkened at the words, as if a storm had passed by. Cullen continued. “There was a lot of blood and screaming. People were being tortured... and killed. There was some kind of monster in the middle of it all.” He had to stop and tried several times before he was able to voice the next thing out loud. “I think I was there too.”

Dorian didn’t look surprised.

“You knew about this.” Cullen said but his voice wasn’t shaking like he thought it would be. Dorian didn’t say anything. “Was it real?” Cullen whispered. He was scared of what he would find in Dorian’s eyes, but he was also afraid that if he did look away he would miss it. Whatever it was.

“I can’t tell you that.” Dorian said. “Forgive me.”

The feeling again. Cullen knew what its name was now. Anger. It surged up so quickly he couldn’t keep it in check. It burst out of his chest and out of his mouth. “NO.” He said. He sat up so quick Dorian stood and stepped back from the bed. Cullen didn’t care that he was bare-chested. (His small was the only thing he was wearing, having kicked off the sweat-soaked clothes the night before.) He was furious, frustrated, scared, and he needed to let it out. “No.” He said again. “Not good enough.”

“Not good enough?” Dorian repeated, as if he couldn’t quite believe his ears.

“You know things.” Cullen said. “You know things and you refuse to tell me. You knew about this, just like you knew about any other thing but you prefer to leave me in the dark. You worry about me all the time like I’m about to do something stupid and get myself killed but you refuse to tell me why. You think I’m a child but I’m not! If you would just… say what it is that makes you worry, I will make sure to not do it.” He was breathing heavily, looking like he was on the verge of tears. His voice got smaller and smaller. The anger drained him. Cullen’s shoulder slumped and he sighed, visibly deflated. “I wish you would stop treating me like that.” Cullen said.

Dorian winced at that. Cullen bit his lips. He felt guilty, but he wanted answers. Maybe he would finally get some this time, instead of puzzles after puzzles. Dorian’s right hand twitched at his side. “You’re right.” Dorian said, finally. “You don’t have all of your memory back yet so I do tend to fret about you. I didn’t mean to baby you, but I can understand why you feel that way.” Dorian stopped, and he smiled. Goddamn that smile, Cullen thought. “I apologise. Would you forgive me?”

“Yeah.” Cullen mumbled. He was a little disappointed, but his amazement at the newfound emotion distracted him. “I apologise as well, for yelling.”

“Good. Glad we’ve moved pass that. Now. You must be starving! Before I go make us both something to eat, do you have a question?”

“What’s in the tower?” Cullen asked. He didn’t mean to. It just kind of slipped out.

Dorian stopped for maybe half a second. “Nothing. It is locked simply because I have lost the key. Come now, get dressed.”

If Cullen had thought his outburst would change anything, he would have been wrong. Things came right back on track after that. Cullen was childminded, and forgot about the incident almost right away. He resumed his activity of following Dorian around like a little puppy. Nothing changed, only now Dorian had developed a habit of dragging Cullen outside to read almost every morning. On top of that, the nightmares hadn’t come back at all. Cullen was lured by his contentment into believing this could last for good. And the questions he had intended to ask stayed silent.

Until Dorian said he had to leave again.

Five days this time. Cullen pouted. Dorian sniggered. “It’s really not that long.” He said, opening a drawer to shove some paper in. Cullen pouted some more.

“You said that last time. It was long. And that was only two days.”

“Ah yes, but I’ll be back on the third day for maybe half a day, so it will only be two days and then two days again, really.” Cullen stared at one of the sparkling sphere things on Dorian’s desk.

“But why do you have to go?” He said, sounding whiny to his own ears.

“Just to take care of some business that requires my attention, my dear Commander.” Dorian closed the drawer and walked to Cullen. “Come. Let’s get you to bed.”

But even after Cullen had changed into his nightclothes and was tucked under the cover, he noticed Dorian was frowning still. “What’s troubling you?” He asked.

“Do you remember... that day when I came back and you said I hid things from you?” Dorian looked hesitated. Then, he said slowly. “I haven’t told you everything because I think you’re not ready. Maybe I’m not ready either.” He pursed his lips. “But I promise I’ll tell you everything I know when the time is right.”

Cullen looked at him. He didn’t know what to feel. He had no reason not to trust Dorian, but he had lived with secrets for so long that to have the answers just given to him like that sounded rather unbelievable. At a loss of what to do, he threw the cover over his face.

They both laughed. Cullen was giggling when a hand was placed on his face, resulting in a half strangled yelp that he denied ever was his.

Said hand moved up to his forehead. Cullen heard Dorian’s fond chuckle. “Forgive me. Though it’s rather hard to decipher which part of you is a nose when you’re just a lump under the blanket.” Cullen leaned into the touch and…

Him. Naked. On some sort of table. Everything was scary and painful but the hand wasn’t. A strange room with a huge window. Dorian’s eyes glistening in the moonlight. Dorian helped him get off the table. He stumbled and nearly fell. The stone wall ran in a circle.

A small panicky sound got out of his mouth.

“What’s w...” Dorian started.

“Nothing.” Cullen squeaked out, cutting him off. “Nothing. You should go to bed too. Early morning and all. Good night.”

He stayed hidden under the cover, so he didn’t know what Dorian reaction was. The man just said a quiet good night and left the room.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing Cullen did when he woke up the next day was going to look for the key.

Dorian had left early just like last time. After some contemplation, Cullen had come to the conclusion that Dorian’s desk was the most likely place to hide the key. But after half an hour spent looking under every letter, paper and parchment on the desk and in the drawers, he still hadn’t caught a sight of it. Cullen felt his stomach twisting into knots. He wasn’t sad, nor angry. Anxious didn’t quite describe it. He was trying to not pay attention to the fact that Dorian had looked at him in the eyes and lied to him, afraid he might not be able to handle it. Instead, he focused his energy to looking for the answers himself by finding a way to enter the tower, even though he couldn’t even guess what would be up there. He just needed to go to the bottom of this, else it would not let him go. The tower had appeared in his memory. There must be something special about it.

Cullen went through one of the drawers again, looking to see if it had a false bottom. Didn’t look like so. The thick pile of paper caught his eyes, however. The penmanship didn’t look to be Dorian’s. Dorian’s was neat and meticulous while this looked messy. In fact, it was so bad that Cullen couldn’t even read it. There were some paragraphs at the top, followed by miles and miles of equations. Cullen had regained enough of his skill to know these weren’t just any typical equation. But that was about as far as he got. Cullen put them back in and closed the drawers.

Cullen spent two days looking around the house, but didn’t find the key. On the morning of the third day, he woke up and didn’t feel like getting out from under the cover. The nightmare had come back, worse than before. Each time he closed his eyes, it appeared again. The monstrous figure loomed ever closer to the peripheral of his awareness. Cullen felt trapped by his own memory, annoyed at how restricted he was because of the missing pieces, and pissed that he even had to fight to earn what was rightfully his. Moreover, he was angry that even though Dorian’s dishonest felt like a slap to the face, Cullen still, somehow, didn’t think Dorian would lie to him. He lay on the soft mattress and let self-pity washed over him. So far, this one was his least favourite among all the feelings he had rediscovered. The sky looked nasty outside, grey and heavy. It would probably rain soon. No use lying around, he thought glumly. They had some clothes outside. He should go and put them in. Make himself useful.

His feet got tangled with the cover, and Cullen felt face first out of the bed.

The soft carpet blanketed his fall, so he wasn’t hurt seriously. Cullen sighed at his own predicament. He had thought he was ridiculous, but clearly he wasn’t fully aware of just how ridiculous. He put his hands to the ground to push himself up.

Chance decided many things in life.

At that moment, Cullen couldn’t tell why his eyes were drawn to the house plant in the corner of the room, just that they were. It was a fake plant. At the beginning, he had once found it weird and exotic, but things turned invisible when they became familiar. Perhaps it was Andraste who had guided him. Cullen thought, and then backtracked at the thought because he had no idea who or what that was. But as it had happened, he looked to his side at the plant and saw a small spot of light on the wall next to it. The pot was made of clay. Light could not have reflected off of its surface.

Cullen felt his heartbeat increased as he approached the thing. The plant itself looked the same as ever, a never changing imitation of life. Cullen tried to see behind the pot but couldn’t. It was standing a little too close to the wall for him to have a proper look. He tried to lift it, but it was a little too heavy. In the end, he resolved to pushing it out of the corner, which required a lot of pulling and maneuvering so the heavy pot wouldn’t fall on him.

In truth, Cullen didn’t think that the light reflection was from the key. He didn’t know if he was still even looking for the blasted thing anymore. His body was acting on its own and his mind was somewhere else. He didn’t even think about it until suddenly it was in his hand, heavy and cold between his fingers. There was a broken chain loop that fell to the carpet when Cullen bought the key up to his eyes to have a closer look. It looked like any other key, yet Cullen knew that it didn’t open just one lock, but two.

Cullen was still expecting the key to not fit when he put it into the lock hole. Surely it couldn’t be this easy. But it went in without a problem and when he twisted it, the lock gave out a small ‘clack’. Cullen pushed, and the door opened.

A spiral staircase was behind the door. The inside was very dark, but the darkness was different. It felt cold and deserted. There was no window or hole on the wall. The place was only illuminated faintly by the light that shone down from above. The stone wall was rough and unpolished. No dragon decoration. Cullen noted, for the second time, that the tower looked at odd with the house. Seemed like it was put together as an afterthought. Cullen briefly wondered if he should go get a candle, or just get down all together. But he kept moving up. His footsteps bounced off the wall and reverberated around the circular space.

The room was exactly like he remembered.

Cullen felt light-headed and detached, as if he wasn’t in control of his body. The feeling wasn’t unlike the one he had when he found the key. He looked around but couldn’t focus on just one thing. There was the huge window, tightly closed. The only light in the room came through the small cracks on its shutters. No curtain. Stone wall. A table in the middle, covered by a white sheet. A small couch. Some empty racks. No chest nor cupboard. The room was relatively empty.

He walked over to the table and stared down at it. He wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for. The sheet looked spotless. Dust aside, it didn’t have a single crease or stain. The table was in a similar state of cleanliness when Cullen lifted up a corner of the sheet to look at it.

As Cullen stood there, in the middle of that pristine room, he realised Dorian had not lied to him. Nothing was up here, and the key really was lost to the man. Cullen himself had found it purely on incidence. Dorian had not lied to him. He had been wrong to doubt the man. Immediately with relief came a dab of guilt. He had been angry at Dorian over… nothing.

Cullen left the tower and its “mystery” behind. He hadn’t forgotten about what he had remembered, but the room did not help him figuring out what it meant. Rather, the emptiness made him uncomfortable. He was too used to the house down there, which was filled to the brim with a hundred different things. Cullen took a deep breathe when the library came into view. He could not have been up there for over an hour, yet it felt like several had passed. He closed the door behind him and locked it. His steps felt so much lighter now that he wasn’t sneaking around anymore. Cullen headed towards Dorian’s study. The familiarity of the heavily decorated hallway and its dragon wrapped around him like a comforting blanket. Cullen figured he could leave the key on Dorian’s table and explained when the man came back.

Cullen was reading when he heard the door open. Without even putting the book down, Cullen rushed to the stairs. How time changed things. Just this morning he had dreaded the thought of Dorian coming back. The misunderstanding combining with the things unsaid between them made the thought of facing the man nearly unbearable. Cullen skipped a few steps down the stairs. Not anymore. Now he wanted to tell Dorian everything he’d been up to. Cullen stopped halfway, however, when he saw that Dorian was not alone.

Dorian was trying to close the door on someone, and had nearly succeeded. The door was opened but a fraction. Dorian gritted through his teeth: “You’re mistaken.”

“Am I?” The person on the other side said. A male voice, sounding slightly strained. “You have been hiding here for months. That alone would have rang some serious alarm without adding the fact that you hate this house. You only came back to Qarinus for your meetings with Maevaris. Even she had suspected that something wasn’t right.”

“I have nothing to talk about.” Dorian said, trying to shut the door again. The other person must be putting up quite a fight because he still hadn’t managed to do it. “Dorian.” That person said again. “You’re not attempting _that_ again, are you?” Dorian missed a beat, and that was all everyone needed to come to a conclusion.

“Dorian.” The person’s tone was much more serious when he said the name this time. “Tell me you’re not doing it.”

Dorian stubbornly refused to say a word. He started pushing the door again. Still couldn’t shut it. It looked like there was a much fiercer battle going on now. The other person was on the verge of shouting. “Dorian. He won’t come back. You have to accept it. I can’t let you waste your life away like my father did.”

Cullen remembered dying.

Death came as a relief. It did. An end to an endless thirst that had been burning him alive from the inside. For such a long time, Cullen had only known the thirst. Lyrium was the only word on his tongue. The jeering and sneering did not exist in his world because he had long since lost the ability to understand. The craving was like a thousand ants biting him under his skin. Nothing could help him now. The thirst was insufferable, even the pain on his neck could not compare. He couldn’t breathe, but that wasn’t new either. Then he was falling, collapsing. And then, darkness.

Cullen dropped the book in his hand when he reached up to touch the scar on his neck.

The sound of the thick leather bound book meeting the stair and then falling down a couple of steps startled Dorian. He turned around, and his eyes went as wide as Cullen’s when he saw the blond standing there. The person outside, Cullen still didn’t know who it was, took advantage of the distraction. Dorian had to back away several steps as the door swung opened.

Cullen and Dorian both turned toward the entrance. Cullen hardly noticed the light crashing into the house and engulfing him, too busy taking in the stranger. The man dressed in a blue and silver uniform, with a griffon symbol on one of his shoulders. A Grey Warden, Cullen thought. If it were under normal circumstances, the man’s face probably would not have left any strong impression. There wasn’t anything particularly special about him that jumped out at people. His nose wasn’t too big or too small, neither were his lips. He had skin the same shade of brown as Dorian’s. And Cullen had already figured out that he was Tevinter based on his accent. As it was, Cullen thought he would never forget the look on the man’s face right now.

It was like he was looking at a ghost.

“Maker’s breath, Dorian.” The man’s voice was barely above a whisper. “What have you done?”

“I saved him.”

Cullen’s eyes snapped back to where Dorian was. He looked angry. His nostrils were downright flaring. Cullen was almost certain Dorian was going to bare his teeth and growl. The dark haired man walked right into the warden’s space, who held his ground, and bit out. “I am not doing it, Felix. Because I did it. I succeeded. Yes, I know, no need to applaud. Now that’s out and over with, please stop being my mother. Having one who is still constantly fussing over every little crease on my tunic is quite enough, I assure you.” Felix opened his mouth as if to speak, but Dorian didn’t let him. “I think it is time for you to get back to your camp, old friend. Else your blue-eye hawk might come here himself and complicate thing further.”

The glares that were being passed between the two mages right now could probably melt ice. Cullen guessed Felix must have known as much about Dorian as Cullen himself did, if not more. He clearly knew that pushing Dorian further would not yield any result and backed off. Felix sighed and raised his hands.

“Fine, I will take my leave. But we _will_ continue this conversation, Dorian.” He turned to Cullen and hesitated. Cullen couldn’t blame him. What could one say when suddenly faced with someone who had been dead? But the words that tumbled out from Felix’s mouth sounded earnest. “Farewell, Commander. For whatever the worth, it’s good to see you again.”

Dorian closed the door behind his departing friend.

And didn’t turn around.

“You heard everything?” He asked. His voice sounded hollow.

“I heard everything.” Cullen said, surprised that his voice didn’t shake. “And I think I’m ready for that explanation now.”

***

The conversation didn’t start right then.

They moved, first, to Dorian’s quarter. Not too far away from Cullen’s own. Cullen had not said a word since Felix left. He sat in the chair, quiet as a ghost, and wouldn’t stop touching the scar on his neck. It had stood out the first time he laid eyes on it. Now he knew why. He wondered how big the puddle of blood was, whether he died of blood loss or suffocation. Maybe it was both. When Cullen opened his mouths, the first thing he said was: “So I am dead.”

Funny, that was how the word tasted like on his tongue. He didn’t have to press his hand against his chest to know that his heart was thumping like a wild buck behind his ribcage. But he didn’t want to use the word ‘was’, just in case it would be wrong. He didn’t know what he was, if he was real. Dorian looked as if the words had struck him. Cullen felt much the same. His breathing quickened as if his lungs were trying to prove that they were actually working.

Cullen looked at Dorian expectantly like he was waiting for a direction. Like way back then when he couldn’t even say his own name. Things were so different now, and yet so similar. As it turned out, he still knew nothing.

“You _were_ dead.” Dorian said, correcting him.

“I was dead.” Cullen repeated. Strangely, the words sounded the same. He guessed being real or not didn’t matter, not when there was a bigger question: how?

“You’re a Necromancer.” Cullen didn’t mean for it to come out as an accusation, but that was exactly what it was. Dorian said nothing. His shoulder slumped in a defeated posture Cullen had never seen him in before. Cullen swallowed. He had to know. “Am I me?”

Dorian chuckled dryly, like the sound had been forced out of him. “Of course you’re you. Sloppy halfway job isn’t exactly my style, my dear Commander.”

Before Cullen could voice his next concern, Dorian continued. “And no, there was no blood magic involved either. It’s not like blood magic has ever been used to grant life, I’m afraid.”

“Then how?”

“Time magic.”

“Like the one Alexius used in Redcliffe.” Cullen said. Dorian’s eyebrow went up.

“When did you remember that? Nevermind. It doesn’t matter now. Yes, something similar to that. Much more complicated and even more prone to failure though. But I managed.”

Was this supposed to be good news? Cullen couldn’t tell. He didn’t say anything and waited for Dorian to continue.

“Alexius and I worked together on this before the Venatori but we never finished it. Want to send a man back in time? A large source of energy is required. Nothing we tested at the time was enough.

“Then Alexius found Corypheus, who, I assumed, suggested drawing energy from the Breach. And voila, the amulet at Redcliffe was the result. But Alexius didn’t see that the amulet would be tied to the Breach itself, and therefore could only turn back time so far as when it first appeared. Too desperate, I supposed. Felix’s time was running short. Do you remember reading about this in the report?”

Cullen nodded. He did now.

“When you disappeared...” Dorian swallowed. “Rylen sent me the notification. We… I guess you could say we formed a team. Whenever there was some supposed news about you, I paid and Rylen sent his men. Cassandra led the search whenever she had the time. To be honest, it wasn’t the best of action. But we didn’t know what else to do.”

The names came with flashes of the past. Two of Cullen’s best subordinates and friends. Cullen thought he missed them, although he couldn’t recall their face. Dorian’s hand twitched at his side again. He kept starring at the empty table as if he expected something to be there. Cullen could relate. He had, so many times _before_ , put his hand in his pocket trying to find a vial only to realise none was there. Dorian leaned back against the couch with a sigh.

“I regret quitting alcohol, but the drinking night and day was interfering with the research. Getting ahead of myself again. So you disappeared. I talked to Rylen, and we both came to a conclusion that you hadn’t much time. Rylen just wanted to find you before you forgot everything. He wanted your last days to be as comfortable as possible. Stubborn old me couldn’t accept that. I told myself, this could not be it. There must still be something I could do. That was what I told Rylen. He called me an idiot, saying lyrium madness was ‘irreversible.’ And that was when it came to me.”

There was a tap on the window, probably a little tree branch. Neither Dorian nor Cullen paid it any mind.

“The next day, I sent a letter to Alexius, asking him to send me every single page of his research. Even the scrap paper. My idea was to use time magic to bring your body back to its previous state. So, yes, reversing the effect of the lyrium madness. There’s no actually travelling through time involved, so the magic source required should be smaller. Hypothetically.”

Cullen leaned forwards, putting his elbows on his knees. Despite the chaos reigning in his head, he was fascinated by Dorian’s explanation on how it all worked. It was insane, and brilliant. It should have been impossible, but the mere fact that he was sitting here was proof that it wasn’t. That Dorian succeeded.

“And then I discovered that the lyrium in your blood could theoretically be the source. But in order to do so, the magic would need to be channel through your body. So, triumphant me tried it on a few mice. None survived, of course. Then the horses. Didn’t work either. I didn’t know if lyrium affected them in a different way or not. For three months I wasn’t able to make any improvement. To say I was frustrated was an understatement. I was going to send words to Rylen, ask him to help hunt down a few Venatori. If donning the villainous stereotype meant a chance of saving you then so be it. In the end I didn’t have to.” Dorian chuckled. “You died on me.”

The more Dorian talked, the more he seemed to gain back some of his humour. Cullen didn’t mind. Dorian seemed more like himself when he talked like that. He pretended to care so little about things, but inside he cared so much. Cullen had loved that about him.

“I came to the decision quite quickly. It was very simple. Dig you up. Bring you back here. Do the magic. It wasn’t like I had anything to lose at that point. I was in a daze almost. Didn’t eat nor sleep. I left as soon as I got the location from Rylen, and came right back here after... after retrieving you. It took another week to complete the calculation. I think you can understand why. A dead body wasn’t in my initial plan.”

Something jumped out at Cullen. “Wait. So where was I during that week? I mean, where did you leave me?”

“Upstairs. And before you wrinkle your nose, I had a ward set up. Maggots never touched you, Commander. Not after I got my hands on you anyway. Ha, now you’re turning green. Always know your southerners had a weak stomach. Best if I spare you the details of how I prepare you for the ritual then. Shame, it was the only part that involved Necromancy. Just know that it worked. Obviously, you’re here.”

A beat of silence. Cullen realised Dorian was looking somewhere else when he said so, rather unlike him when he was praising himself for a job well done. The realisation made Cullen’s body grew cold.

“You didn’t expect it to work, did you?”

“Why. Are you doubting me Commander? I’m hurt.”

Cullen stared him down.

“Fine. I didn’t. Nope. Not one bit. The calculation checked out. There was chemistry involved, couldn’t go far without it. And I later decided to throw alchemy into the mix, which honestly was just a fancier name for chemistry with magic. But a theory was just a theory. I didn’t expect it to work. I really don’t know what happened. After I succeeded I had read everything over and over again, redone all the calculation, and still got nothing. I don’t think I would be able to do this again even if my life depended on it, well, again. Happy now?”

Dorian pouted, and Cullen was so surprised he couldn’t help but snort out a laugh. The sound was undignified, and it made Dorian looked even more insulted. The whole thing only prompted Cullen to laugh harder. Honestly, there was nothing funny about dying and getting resurrected because your friend mixed some weird thing with other weird things to create another weird thing that even him don’t understand. But he just couldn’t stop laughing. Everything is just so peachy, Cullen thought. Even Dorian didn’t sounded like he believed that it did actually happen. And he was the one who made it happened!

Cullen heard a sigh, then felt a hand placed on top of his. Dorian took hold of the hand Cullen was placing on the arm rest with his right hand, and slid his left into the soft blond curls. He pushed Cullen’s head so that it rested against his chest. “There, there.” He said.

Cullen turned his face into the soft fabric and tried to smother his laughter there. Dorian gently carded his fingers through Cullen’s hair as if comforting a child crying. Only Cullen wasn’t a child, and he wasn’t crying, even though hysterical giggling might arguably be worse. Dorian didn’t say anything, which Cullen was thankful for. Even when the laughter subsided then died out, and Cullen fell into silent, Dorian was still holding him. Blast it to damnation, Cullen thought then chuckled darkly. Dorian tensed up, likely feared that another giggling fit was coming.

“So this is why you have to keep a close watch on me all the time.”

“No. I keep a close watch on you because I worried that you might drop dead on me at any moment. Been through that once, and believe me when I say it was not a pleasant experience.”

So that was the explanation. So simple, yet so much more complicated than Cullen might have thought. Dorian sounded matter-of-factly to Cullen’s ears, but the man wouldn’t know just how intense the storm his words had caused. Cullen felt… He didn’t know what he was feeling. Numb, at the centre. The big reality hadn’t sunk in yet. He died and came back again. That still sounded so fabled.

Cullen stood up. The sudden movement dislodged Dorian in the process. “I apologise. I...” He couldn’t look at Dorian. “I need a moment.”

Normal people went to their favourite place when they had a crisis, whatever the crisis might be. There lied Cullen’s three problems. One, he wasn’t ‘normal people.’ Two, his favourite place was anywhere that Dorian was. But now he just wanted to get as far away from Dorian as possible. And three, he wasn’t sure if he even had a crisis.

After all, what was worth having a crisis about? He wasn’t a walking corpse, not like he had feared. Cullen brought his hand up and flexed his fingers. Pondering. From the start, Dorian hadn’t deceived him. Cullen understood why the man might not have told the whole truth. With mind like a child and the stress of relearning everything from scratch, Cullen would not have been able to handle being told he had been dead. He wondered what Dorian would have said. The man would probably start with something dramatic like, “There’s something I have to tell you.” Then he would probably rush the whole thing, try to downplay it. Something like: “You’re the result of multiple kinds of very dangerous magic, actual science and a lot of mistakes. But hey, it could have been worse. You could have been in worse hand. Not that I’m bad, mind you, quite the opposite.”

That would sound like Dorian. Cullen raised his hand to the scar on his neck again. It must have been messy patching his decomposing body back the way it was. Did Dorian use dirt? Parts from dead animals? Or, Andraste forbids, from other dead bodies? Cullen made a face. At least Dorian hadn’t run away and abandoned Cullen to fend for himself. He really didn’t want a life in the wood with no memory.

Cullen thought about his previous life. A black canvas, with some blotchy patches of colour. He must have had a shitty life. Cullen had already learned he had an addiction that eventually destroyed his mind and led to his death, and yet he knew worse things were waiting to be discovered. The nightmares, for example. He was in no hurry to figure out what memory they held.

Cullen’s thought strayed to Dorian. The man had seemed familiar even from the first day, when Cullen had opened his eyes and seen the world anew. It had never occurred to him until now, that his interaction with Dorian was out of a habit obtained in his previous life. Perhaps the marks Dorian left had been etched so deep into his skin that even if Cullen didn’t remember Dorian, even if he wasn’t wholly himself, his body still recognised the dark haired man and the comfort that he provided. Cullen hung his head. He could really do without the maybes and the perhaps. Maybe he should have asked Dorian.

Cullen curled in on himself. The numbness had expanded to the tips of his fingers. They felt heavy with exhaustion. The day had been long. The light was slowly retreating to the horizon, signalling that it would be dark very soon. The temperature would likely drop another few degrees.

Just when Cullen thought he should go inside, the front door opened. Candlelight spilled onto the grasses as Dorian stepped out. The man was carrying a blanket on one hand and a steaming mug on the other. Cullen could only stare as Dorian approached, a tiny smile at the corner of his lips.

“I figured it must be getting cold.” He said and put both things down next to Cullen. Tea, as it turned out. It might have been Cullen’s imagination, but Dorian’s eyes were almost the same colour as the setting sun. “Come in when you want to. You know the door’s not locked.”

Cullen didn’t know what to do as he watched Dorian turn and walk away, head held straight. His gait was leisure and prideful, one of the results of years of careful training. It suddenly registered to Cullen that he hadn’t thanked the man. He hadn’t said any word at all. Cullen wondered if Dorian thought he was mad at him, when that was not the case.

It was pointless being out here any longer.

“Wait.” Cullen called out. He gathered up the blanket but forgot about the mug. Quickly decided to leave it, Cullen ran toward Dorian. “Dorian.” He called out. Dorian stopped. Cullen didn’t know if the expression on Dorian’s face was surprise when he finally caught up with the man. Wonderment, maybe. A maybe Cullen didn’t mind. Dorian’s eyes softened with affection as he took in Cullen’s messy form, and Cullen had a feeling that it was all that mattered. 


	2. Chapter 2

The moon was very bright tonight.

Cullen sighed and leaned against the wall. It seemed he only ever pay extra attention to the presence of the moon when the circumstance was most unusual. He shifted his legs. The night in Qarinus was usually calming, yet its serenity could not help Cullen today. He turned away from the window, as if to hide from the echoing sound of the ocean and the singing of summertime insects. A single loud bark of laughter rang from the street below, and then died as abruptly as it had appeared.

Cullen and Dorian had moved to Qarinus a week after what would forever existed in Cullen’s mind as ‘that night’. Felix had been the one to suggest the move when he came back to ‘visit’. Dorian and Cullen had found no reason to oppose him. After all, there was no point in continuing living there. Cullen had gotten used to life in Qarinus much faster than expected. During the day, the city was a cacophony mess full to bursting with activities from its citizen, who seemed to never stop working. A dozen ships docked here every minute, or so Cullen was told. But judging from how busy it seemed, he figured that couldn’t be too far from the truth. Despite all that, the nights were gentle. Looking out from the window of the Pavus resident’s guest quarter, Qarinus seemed much similar to a mosaic made from candlelight. It would have been so noble hadn’t the dark also provided a veil to cover the citizen’s unsavoury business.

It also happened to be because of one of those unsavoury business that Cullen ended up being Dorian’s personal bodyguard. As the results of the Lucerni’s steady power growth, its key members had already been seen as threats. Dorian, specifically. A Crow had somehow found her way into his bedroom. She probably was going to cut his throat, when she tripped over an alarm line and woke him up. Needless to say things didn’t end well for the Crow. Dorian took the assassination attempt was a compliment. Cullen certainly hadn’t thought so.

Things had come to Cullen much easier after ‘that night’, as if knowing the truth about his death had knocked out a blockage in his head. A lifetime couldn’t come back overnight, but time was something that Cullen had now. Naturally, there had been bad days when he opened his eyes and saw nothing but blood. The scars from Ferelden’s Circle, from Kirkwall and from Haven he would carry around for the rest of his life. But there had also been good days to make up for them, like the one when he woke up with the names Mia, Brandon and Rosalie on the tip of his tongue.

Even before the incident with the Crow, Cullen had been wondering about the ‘after’. He didn’t know if he should go back to the South or not. After all, Cullen wasn’t sure if he could still have a life there. Dorian had said only a handful of people know about his death, but those few people were some of the most powerful people in Thedas. Questions would definitely be raised upon his return. He could be imprisoned, or even executed just in case he was a blood mage or a demon in disguise. Cullen knew that mindset all too well. Truthfully, he wanted to stay, here, in Tevinter. He had never intended to go back to the Free Marches, and Ferelden had stopped feeling like home a long time ago. At least in Tevinter, he had a reason to stay. He just didn’t want to be another bother for Dorian.

Dorian had agreed with minimum protest when Cullen brought up the idea. Cullen knew Dorian trusted his ability. Even more, the man respected his wish and opinion. Cullen’s form might not be as good as before, but he had been practicing every day ever since he knew how to pick up a sword again. Beside, his Templar ability wasn’t lost. In a country full of mages who didn’t know how to fight with Templars, Cullen made a good asset. As it turned out, Dorian also relished in it. Cullen would usually accompany him to his meetings with the Lucerni, and when he and Magister Tilani met with representatives from other families. Cullen could tell his presence unnerved the mages without Dorian having to spell it out to him. Still, the man liked to remind him on a daily basis how important he was, and how brilliant he was to have suggested this. “They’re really not used to the magic nullifying trick, you see. You’re like a bedtime story come to life. A scary one that’s over six foot tall and can stab them in the neck. Bonus.”

Dorian had changed after that night, when secret had finally been revealed and confession had been made. He had reverted back to the Dorian of before, one that Cullen had started to recognise. Cullen recognised the way he laughed, the way the talked, even the way he looked. Cullen didn’t know if it was because he had started remembering or because Dorian no longer seemed to wear a mask around him. Cullen probably wasn’t the only one who was slowly regaining pieces of himself.

The first memory of Dorian that had come to Cullen was the one of the dark-haired man standing in Skyhold’s library. He was looking for something and hadn’t notice Cullen walking up behind him. The place was strangely quiet that day, even Leliana’s birds weren’t causing as much of a ruckus as usual. The smell of the frankincense that Solas burnt lingered in the air. Then there were the chess matches that Dorian won totally by cheating. His pearl of triumphant laughter still rang loud and clear in Cullen’s ears. And a wooden box, delivered to Dorian with an apology note, followed by Dorian’s startled words when he opened it to reveal a sophisticated amulet.

The memories were so ordinary that Cullen couldn’t figure out why they stood out to him the way they did. There wasn’t any detail that made them distinctively different, nor was there anything in particular that jumped out at Cullen. And so, the feeling that something was missing was impossible to shake off.

In the end, the answer came to him in the form of Dorian drenched in blood. Actually, it came to him hours after that, in the dark of his quarter. It had started with Dorian drenched in blood. They had been ambushed on their way back from Minrathous. Cullen shuddered thinking about what would have happened had he not been there. Cullen’s troop were outnumbered three to one. Luckily, Cullen had anticipated the attack and had prepared his men for it. They had driven the assassins off quickly with only minimum injury.

While the soldiers took care of their wounded, Cullen had gone to investigate the bodies. He wanted to see if there was any obvious clue to where they might come from. Assassination attempts were usually done with discreet, but there were always those who wanted to make a statement.

“This is rather pathetic even for my rival, whoever they might be.” Dorian said, looking around at the bodies. He was walking slowly toward Cullen, treading lightly to avoid splashing blood. Cullen took pride in the fact that not a single hair on Dorian’s head appeared to be out of place. He was sweating a little, but that was unavoidable under the warm sun of Tevinter.

Cullen spotted the prowler a heartbeat too late, another thing he would never forgive himself for. He reached for the throwing knife in his belt the moment he saw them materialising behind Dorian, even though he knew it wouldn’t make it.

“DORIAN.”

If anything happens to him, Cullen had thought, if anything happens to him, I...

There was a loud bang that had everyone turning their heads (if Cullen’s shout hadn’t done it already). The prowler exploded in mid-air before Cullen’s very eyes, stopping the blond dead in his track. It would have been impressive if the situation had been different. Nevertheless, the effect was devastating. Dorian, due to being in close proximity with the prowler, was doused head to toe in blood. Silent fell upon the field. The men who understood what just happened didn’t know whether to laugh or not, and the ones who didn’t stood still in confusion.

Dorian had looked like he might just kill himself right there.

He motioned Cullen over, who nearly tripped over bodies running to his side. Cullen was opening his mouth to say something, but all thought fled when Dorian lifted his arm up and wiped the blood off his mouth with the bit of shirt that peaked out under Cullen’s vambrace.

“Fasta vass.” Dorian screeched. “Is there brain in my hair? I think there’s brain in my hair. No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. Do we have towel? I think it’s starting to seep into my small. Venhedis. I am going to burn everything once we got home. Everything.”

“What just happened?” Cullen found himself saying in disbelief.

“What? The bit when innards went flying everywhere? I must have hit them with a walking bomb curse earlier. Thanks, past me. Or no thanks.”

Cullen’s instinct was yelling at him to take Dorian into his arms, hold him really tight and never let go, then maybe drag him into a cave and keep him there so no one would ever be able to lay hands on him again. As ridiculous as it sounded, it took every ounce of self-control for Cullen to not do it. He imagined Dorian would not be very pleased with a cave.

It was twilight when they reached the house. Dorian made a beeline for his quarter. Cullen couldn’t blame him. The blood had dried stiff, making the fabric itchy and gross. The servants paled upon seeing their Master caked in blood, but Cullen had quickly reassured them that Dorian was unharmed. After his own bath, Cullen had gone down to the kitchen for a quick meal then come back to his room, and hadn’t left it since then.

He had thought that was it. He had thought that prowler had got Dorian. That fucking prowler. Cullen clenched his fists. He wished there had been at least a body so he could kick it to satisfy his anger. Cullen had felt his blood curdle in his veins. His lungs had stopped working and as terror gripped at his heart. If anything had happened to Dorian...

Cullen wasn’t a fool. He knew what his feeling for Dorian was. He had assumed it was a crush, born out of hero-worship that would pass in time. But it hadn’t passed. With every smile Dorian encouraged it to grow a little bigger, until it became something more, something that wouldn’t leave Cullen alone. It interfered with his thought, messed with his heart rate and his blood pressure and demanded attention all the time. It was so much worse than any lyrium addiction.

Cullen rubbed his forehead. He couldn’t be in love, especially not with Dorian. Most days he didn’t even feel real. The abrupt changes that happened after his resurrection, even if they were for the better, still had him reeling. Lyrium no longer sang to him. The nightmares were few and far between. Both had followed him for more than a decade, and then he was suddenly left with just… himself. Sometimes, Cullen felt like he was living a borrowed life.

And more over, what did he have to offer? He was a broken down soldier with too many shadows in his steps. He had no title, no land and no possession to speak off. The last thing he wanted was to be more of a bother to Dorian.

“Cullen?”

The door slipped open to reveal none other than Dorian standing on the other side. He looked startled when he saw Cullen standing in the dark.

“My apology. I knocked but there was no answer.” Dorian said, the concern obvious in his voice. Cullen supposed he did make a worrisome picture.

Without hesitation, Dorian walked up to Cullen. He raised his left hand and pressed it against Cullen’s forehead.

“Not as warm as I thought. Probably not a fever. Are you feeling unwell?”

Cullen shook his head. It was comical how Dorian was fussing over him when Dorian himself was the one who had been in mortal danger mere hours ago. If the curse had detonated even a second later, things would have been completely different. Dorian might have been lost to him forever. On impulse, Cullen reached out to hold Dorian’s wrist. He dug his finger in and felt for the fluttering of the blood vessel under the skin. The subtle movement against his fingertips had Cullen’s whole body sagged in relief. He rested his head on Dorian’s shoulder, and sighed.

Dorian hummed.

“You always worry too much, Cullen.”

“I don’t.” Cullen mumbled. Dorian chuckled. He put his hand on the back of Cullen’s neck and started stroking his skin in small circles.

“You do. You just don’t remember.”

Except that Cullen did remember. He was never this worked up when Dorian was going with the Inquisitor to dangerous place with just four people, during wartime.

Cullen remembered gazing out the window to the front bridge in a minute of distraction, looking at the black spots amidst the white that were the soldiers. The Inquisitor had been gone for a few days, during which it had begun to snow. Cullen had chuckled, thinking about what Dorian’s reaction would be when he came back to see snow in the barrack. He would probably complain about the cold, then refuse to wear Cullen’s coat when offered. His face would turn pink when he thought Cullen had looked the other way. Later, when they were under the blanket, Dorian would not hesitate to use his cold feet as a weapon and laughed at Cullen’s indignant yelp.

Dorian always complained about the hole on the roof that Cullen refused to fix. Cullen had found it unnecessary. It never rained on the mountain, and rarely ever snowed. “It let the cold wind in, what if you get sick,” Dorian would say.

Dorian had always been the one who worried too much.

Gently, slowly, as if he was going to scare Dorian away by a simple touch, Cullen wrapped his arms around the man’s waist and pulled him closer.

Cullen recognised this feeling.

Dorian stood in Skyhold library. He hadn’t noticed Cullen yet. Cullen wanted to call out to the man just to see the affection in his eyes when he turned around. The blond held back, however, just stood and watched as Dorian looked for his book. Dorian won the third chess match in a row. His laughter was so endearing Cullen had to fake a smile to duck his head and avert his eyes. He was afraid Dorian would see the affection he wasn’t yet ready to voice. A box delivered to Dorian that contained his birthright. Cullen’s heart ached at the wavering in Dorian’s voice upon seeing the amulet again. He feigned surprise, and decided to not tell Dorian it was him who had threatened the merchant into returning it.

Cullen felt dangerously ungrounded, like he might float away if he let go of the solid warmth in his arms. He buried his face into Dorian’s shoulder, seeking the sense of intimacy that he had been so well-acquainted with. Dorian tensed up. Perhaps he had not expected such a gesture.

“Cullen.” He said breathily.

Cullen had heard his name said in that tone many times before. He had heard Dorian whispered it after their first kiss, lips puffy and eyes half-closed. He had heard it murmured under white sheet, between caresses and hiccupy breath. It was sultry, and smooth, and it was the tone Dorian used whenever the two of them were alone, a lifetime ago. Cullen had liked to think Dorian reserved it only for him.

“Amatus.” Cullen said. The word slipped out almost as an afterthought, still natural even though it had been a while since Cullen last said it.

Dorian inhaled sharply. He pulled back from Cullen’s embrace, and Cullen let him. Behind Dorian, the moon was calm and knowing as ever. It was so frighteningly familiar Cullen had to close his eyes. He felt Dorian’s hands cupped his and heard Dorian saying his name over and over again.

“Cullen.”

Cullen clenched his teeth. If he opened his eyes and saw nothing but pity, he wasn’t sure he could take it.

“It’s alright.” Dorian said. His breath stuttered. “It’s alright, Cullen.”

It wasn’t pity.

Dorian’s eyes were so close Cullen could swear he saw himself in the man’s eyes, even though that should be impossible. His own face was wet, but he supposed it didn’t matter, because Dorian’s was too. Dorian’s face was open, full of hope, and so, so very lovely. It gave Cullen courage.

“Dorian.”

“Yes?”

“Can I kiss you?”

Dorian might have laughed, Cullen wasn’t sure. But he said yes. The next moment, their lips met and it finally clicked for Cullen. This. This was what he had been missing. He tilted his head and deepened the kiss. It was graceless and messy. They were too far gone to care, driven out of control by emotions. Cullen’s just all came rushing back to him in a matter of minutes, and Dorian’s were suppressed for far too long. The unwillingness to be parted from each other was mutual. Dorian walked both of them backward as they stumbled hastily toward the general direction of the bed, ensnared by their desire. He drew back only long enough to push Cullen down onto the mattress. It barely had time to give underneath him before Dorian followed suit. The dark haired man climbed on top of him and greedily claimed his lips again. And Cullen responded with all that he could give.

They made love twice under the moonlight, holding nothing back. Both were in a desperate need to lay claim on each other again. Cullen craved nothing more than to re-map the plane of Dorian’s body and find his way home. They had been together, and yet parted from each other for so long. Cullen would have blamed himself if he had cared, but now only thoughts about Dorian existed in his head. He kissed every inch of skin he could reach, thinking his thirst for this man could ever be satisfied. Dorian returned in kind, leaving behind red welts that stood out in stark contrast on Cullen’s pale skin. They stung, and so did the bite marks that littered all over Cullen’s body. His broken lips tasted tangy when he licked them. Cullen wouldn’t have it any other way.

“So what actually happened to us?”

They lied tangled together under the sheet, legs intertwining. Dorian draped himself on Cullen, practically half-lying on the blond. He rested his chin on Cullen’s shoulder, breath fanning Cullen’s neck. His fingers idly stroke along the length of the scar on Cullen’s neck. Cullen pulled Dorian tighter to him. He had wanted to put his hand on Dorian’s hip, but the slightly awkward angle made it impossible. Cullen pulled the blanket up higher to cover Dorian’s shoulder. The man hummed in acknowledgement. Nights in Tevinter could be quite chilling.

“Hmmm. We broke it off after the Exalted Council. You said you didn’t want to be distracted from your duty and something something. It was a boring speech, I zoned out. Anyway, a year from then I received words from Rylen. And that was when it dawned on me that you knew. You knew your time was running short, and you decided to let me go before it happened.”

Dorian fell silent. Cullen reached up and held the hand Dorian had on his neck. Dorian turned his palm and interlocked their fingers.

“I had suspected something, back when I first woke up at the other house.” Cullen said. Dorian looked up at him.

“My eyes. They changed colour.”

“I remember that.” Dorian mumbled

“That was when I first realised something was not right. I had thought I wasn’t human.” Cullen turned to Dorian and chuckled at how big and round his eyes were. “Now that I remember you, I feel complete. Real.”

“Are you for real?” Dorian huffed.

“Maybe I’m not.” Cullen said, teasingly. “Maybe I’m just an imagination. Maybe I only existed in your head.”

Dorian involuntarily tightened his hold on Cullen’s hand.

“Tell me, Commander.” He said, lips jutting out in a wicked smirk. “Does imagination kiss?”

“Oh. I think you know.” Cullen closed the distance and kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from "Like Real People Do" by Hozier. This was inspired by the song (particularly the part "honey just put your sweet lips on my lips/we should just kiss like real people do") and the novel Frankenstein.


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